As local government officials begin to sort through last month’s dramatic spending reduction deal (the Budget Control Act of 2011) and the impacts of New York-based Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services’ subsequent lowering of the federal government’s long-term credit rating, it’d be easy to simply give in to the negative media coverage and acceptRead… Read more »
When Code for America selected me as a Google Summer of Code Intern for the Government Gems and Eggs project this summer, I knew the next few months were going to be awesome. For the first time ever, I was able to meet and work with people truly committed to making government data more accessible.Read… Read more »
Originally published on opensource.com. In part one of our interview with David Diaz, president and CEO of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, we explored how open source is applied to economic development, how his organization works with local government, and the programs Downtown Raleigh Alliance has implemented. Now, David tells us how influential open source isRead… Read more »
Government agencies not only experience the budget squeeze, they feel mobility demands becoming ever more sophisticated increasing pressure from two sides: Their ecosystem increasingly uses mobile devices and demands for respective accommodation by the government, and, mobile devices and the productivity-enhancing apps that run on them become broadly affordable, a development sometimes dubbed as theRead… Read more »
Interesting article by the erstwhile US government CIO Vivek Kundra, in the New York Times: AS the global economy struggles through a slow and painful recovery, governments around the world are wasting billions of dollars on unnecessary information technology. This problem has worsened in recent years because of what I call the “I.T. cartel.” ThisRead… Read more »
Happy Friday, everyone! This weekend is gearing up to be a great one! Not only is it a long, Labor Day weekend, but college football is kicking off! This GEICO Friday Fun Video is dedicated to all of you football fans out there! Who will you be rooting for this weekend? Don’t get stuck onRead… Read more »
The Obama Administration is offering new job creation proposals. The success or failure of these initiatives depends on accurate problem definition. One major obstacle is stagnant consumer spending. In a previous post we remarked: Research on private consumption, going back 100 years, more or less emphasizes that individuals balance present and future satisfaction when theyRead… Read more »
Gadi Ben-Yehuda Mobile, Apps, and Embedable Maps Bryan Yurcan reports that financial institutions are turning to social media to communicate with their customers during disasters, while Neal Ungerleider reports that the Navy is turning more and more to Google+ for its communications needs. FEMA, meanwhile, has released an app for use in preparation for andRead… Read more »
At Code for America, we’re encouraged to release work product often – what the techy entrepreneur crowd terms an iterative, lean, agile development process. The net result forces you to embrace mistakes, rather than be in denial about them. In this way, work product is available, even if it is in an imperfect state, toRead… Read more »
The so-called hacktivist attacks on sites related to Bay Area Rapid Transit (CA) last month are becoming increasingly common forms of social protest, and experts warn that many government agencies do not have the resources to combat such cyberthreats. “Not just government, but many smaller organizations are outmatched when it comes to a determined hacker,”Read… Read more »